Poke-fans rejoice, our long held dream of being able to capture and battle Nintendo’s iconic Pokemon in the real world has finally arrived.
Part of a joint venture by Nintendo, The Pokemon Company, and a start up formerly embedded in Google called Niantic with Junichi Masuda, the game, titled Pokemon Go, is due for release next year, with a cinematic trailer just released in anticipation.
The game will make use of augmented reality technology to overlay Pokemon on the real world, allowing players to catch, battle, trade Pokemon and participate in events in real life. This is where Niantic comes in, with the start up handling most of the development for the game, following on from their experience with their augmented reality game Ingress.
A long held dream for many fans of the franchise, the trailer, which promises a lot, has set social media aflame as die hard devotees to the game air the excitement across the interwebs. The second most successful gaming franchise in history (#1 being Nintendo’s Mario) Pokemon may be just the ticket to help Nintendo expand their game experiences into the real world, following on from their development of the physically controlled Wii.
However as the aim is for gamers to experience the thrill of catching Pokemon in real life and not through staring at their smartphone, Nintendo is also manufacturing an optional wearable device named the Pokemon Go Plus. Connected via bluetooth to the users smartphone, the device can be clipped to clothing or worn on a wrist strap, and notifies players if a Pokemon or other event is nearby, as well as having a button button to allow catching and other actions.
You can watch the full trailer here:
